AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Why would he want a plain Jane like me?
The sound of my mother’s voice echoes aroundinside my head. “No one wants a plain Jane, Lara. Should you be eating that? Have you done your run today? You look like you put a few inches on your waist. Get on the scale.”The nickname mocks me, and I suddenly feel twelve again.
My eyes fill with water, and my stomach roils.
Can’t this day just fucking end?
Squeezing my eyes closed, I try to extinguish the past. I will myself not to cry, but the corners of my mouth tug down, and tears creep out, wetting my lashes.
My chest rises, and a sob chokes me. I try not to make a sound; it always made my mother worse.
Not that Sam would hear. She’s too busy kicking the back of the front passenger seat.
The breath finally escapes through my mouth, leaving only exhaustion behind.
Can we go back in yet?
My teeth sink into my bottom lip to stop the way the corner of my mouth quivers down, but it’s no good. Instead, I twist my lips left, then right.
I will not sob in this car!Pushing up, I sit straighter, ignoring the pain that pierces my ankle.
Michael is blurry as I look out, but it’s not hard to see the way his face drops. Something in my chest blooms at his obvious concern, but then the car roars to life beneath me, and I realize he wasn’t frowning at me.
No, the reason he and Kaleb are sprinting toward the car is the nutty woman sitting in the driver’s seat, throwing the vehicle into drive!
Lost in the past, I completely missed Sam climbing into the front.
My body is thrown back into the seat a little as she peels out of the parking lot.
“Uh, Sam?”
The petite blond startles, like she forgot I was even in the car.
I really am forgettable.
Glancing in the rearview mirror, she rolls her eyes but stays silent as the car leaves the parking lot and joins the main road.
I grip the door like my life depends on it because I honestly think it does. Who the fuck taught this girl to drive, Kyle Larson?
I grapple quickly with my seat belt because I don’t have a death wish, which is more than I can say for the other woman in this car.
We fly down Ellis Road at what must be twice the legal limit. My stomach roils for an entirely different reason than it did earlier, and as we pass Duke’s station, the lights all melting together, I think I might get car sickness for the first time in my twenty-one-year-old life.
Vomiting all over myself and the back seat will definitely push the night over the edge and officially into the “worst night of my life” category.
The tires scream, or was that me? As we take a left so fast that the back of the car swings out, it sways this way and that as Sam tries to regain control before we finally collide with a tree.
A fucking tree!
I look at the passenger’s side, where the door curves inward as if the metal is reaching out to me. Thankfully, she managed to slow down a little before we collided. Who knows what would have happened if she hadn’t. The popping sound of metal hitting wood plays over and over in my head as I take a mental note of my limbs.
Head—check. Arms—check. Legs—my ankle now feels like it’s on fire, but it’s still attached, socheck.
Gently, I pull at the seat belt where it digs into my shoulder, prying it away slowly. My ribs scream when I breathe in deep.
Better a bruised shoulder and sore chest than a cracked head,I remind myself.
Speaking of brain damage, a loud, obnoxious laugh bursts out of Sam. I can’t see her face, but I do see the red on her fingers when she pulls them back from her forehead.
